Failure to use probability of success in deciding whether to pursue one goal or two.

Warren James, The University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Alasdair Clarke, The University of Essex, United Kingdom

Amelia Hunt, The University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Abstract

Difﬁcult tasks should be attempted one at a time, while
easy tasks can be undertaken in parallel. Reinforcing our previous conclusion
that people are surprisingly poor at applying this logic, we ﬁnd people
fail to select standing positions that maximize their probability of success in
throwing a beanbag into one of two possible hoops. We asked participants to
explicitly report their odds of successfully throwing a beanbag into each hoop
from the location they had chosen to stand, and estimates were highly accurate.
Nonetheless, participants failed to use estimates of success appropriately to
maximize success, suggesting a failure of insight, rather than limited or
inaccurate information, can account for suboptimal decisions about standing
position.